Movement stroke of an operating member for causing sliding movement of a slide member of a slide switch, in general, has to match a stroke just to slide the slide member. That is, if the stroke of the operating member exceeds the desired one, too large a load is applied to the slide members, etc. and can damage a slide switch, etc. while if the stroke is smaller, the slide switch cannot be fully changed over, causing mis-operation of the switch.
In this connection, various adjust means have conventionally been provided in order to conform the stroke of the operating member with the desired one. FIGS. 1 and 2 show an example of such structure where an adjust member 3 is secured to one end of a slide member 2 of a slide switch 1 so that legs 4 thereof are located within an opening 6 of an operating member 5. As shown in FIG. 7, the resiliently deflectable plates or tabs 9 and 9' each have an end portion which is bent downwardly toward the operating member 5, the distance between the bent end portions being slightly less than the width of the operating member 5. Then, the stroke is adjusted by narrowing the distance between the legs 4 as shown in FIG. 4(a) when the stroke A (FIG. 3) of the operating member 5 is larger than the stroke B+C necessary for slidable movement of the slide member 2 or by expanding the legs 4 as shown in FIG. 4(b) when the stroke A is smaller than the stroke B+C so that the slide member is pushed to the right by the adjust member 3 when the operating member 5 is positioned at the rightmost end as shown in FIG. 3(a), while the slide member 2 is pulled to the left by the adjust member 3 when the operating member, passing over the position as shown in FIG. 3(b), reaches the leftmost end as shown in FIG. 3(c).
FIG. 5 shows another example of a structure for adjusting the stroke in which legs 4' are provided on an operating member 5' so as to be astride an assistant member 7 secured to one end of a slide member which is not shown. FIGS. 6(a) and (b) show a further example in which legs 4" are provided on an operating member 5" so as to directly engage an end of the slide member 2. In these examples, also, the stroke is adjusted by narrowing or expanding the distance between the legs.
Those conventional structures certainly make it possible to adjust the stroke. However, matching the stroke by such adjustment not only requires time, but also is extremely difficult. Therefore, overload to the slide member or mis-operation of the switch could not effectively be prevented. Accordingly, it has not been possible to always operate the slide switch with stability and accuracy.